I've got a new blog!

And I've just now posted the first post on it:

lostmoya.wordpress.com

Come along and let me know what you think.

I'm leaving this blog here for now but am attempting to transfer over all the content to the wordpress blog. I'll update in a minute to let you know how that goes...

UPDATE: The export over into wordpress was fine. There are a few formatting issues which I need to sort out, but other than that it was relatively pain-free. I'll be updating over at wordpress from now on, so hop over there if you want to read what's on my mind.

I'm sick of blogspot

I've finally had enough of the interface, lack of tag support and the dearth of customisation options here. I've been messing around with several templates today -- not one of which I liked -- and they all displayed differently on Firefox and IE anyway. The upshot of it all is that I just can't get things looking the way I want them. Plus, I really want tags in order to get mah web 2.0 freak awn!

So, enough is enough. I've made my decision.

I'm going to up sticks and move the whole blog over to wordpress, once I think of a decent blog name.

UPDATE: My new wordpress blog will be at: lostmoya.wordpress.com It's just the default template at the moment, but I'll post back here when I get things up and running properly.

Dead Man's Chest: Ask A Ninja

If your response to my review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest on Monday was all a bit tl;dr, here's a shorter, yet infinitely more entertaining take on the film:



Ask A Ninja's review of POTC:DMC.

Pirates 2 walks plank made of lame...

Well, it's not that bad, but it's not a patch (arrr!) on the first one. Frankly, I'm terribly disappointed because I was looking forward to the visual thrill-ride of the summer. And I suppose it is a visual thrill-ride. Unfortunately, it's not a lot else.

On paper it should be fantastic! All the essential ingredients are there: Keira Knightley; Johnny Depp's superb swaggering, self-absorbed Captain Jack Sparrow; pirates; undead pirates (again); some stunning action set-pieces; more pirates; tribes of hungry cannibals; an enormous ship-guzzling sea monster; bleeding-edge see-gee-eye™ FX; buckle and swash; a search for hidden treasure; pirates... er, did I mention Keira Knightley?... Yep, it seems as if Dead Man's Chest has it all.

So what's wrong with it, then?

Pretty much everything else, really. For a start, there are very few laughs, especially when compared with the first film. It seems like the script is so weighed down by all the plotlines (see below) they forgot to leave any room for the funneh. Johnny Depp's first-rate delivery manages to squeeze out a laugh or two; as does Mackenzie Crook, who's back as Ragetti. Other than that, it's a fairly straight-faced affair -- apart from the jawdropping effects, of course.

My biggest beef with the film, though, is the plot -- and, by the looks of Rotten Tomatoes, that's pretty much everyone else's problem with it, too. There's just too much of it. It's difficult to critique in detail without giving away spoilers, but suffice to say that there are about five or six major plot arcs which all intersect, diverge, and then come back together at various points throughout the film. Pretty convoluted for a summer blockbuster, right? I mean, we're talking Jerry Bruckheimer, not Robert Altman here. But even that's not the problem; I can handle convoluted. The trouble with POTC 2 is this: by the end of the film none of these plots get resolved.

Let me give a little spoileriffic example of just how convoluted things get: The movie opens with Will Turner (yet another simpering pseudo-dish performance from Orlando Bloom) and his fiancée Elizabeth Swann getting thrown into jail by the evil head honcho of the East India Trading Company, Lord Bennett, and sentenced to death. In reality though, Bennett just wants to get his hands on Jack's magical compass. Keeping Elizabeth in jail as leverage, Bennett sends Turner to find Sparrow and retrieve the compass.

Meanwhile, Jack's got himself in a spot of bother with Davy Jones (a practically unrecognisable Bill Nighy on top form). He's calling Jack in to repay an old debt with 100 years of service on Jones' undead pirate ship. To save his skin, Jack's trying to find the key to Davy Jones' chest (using the aforementioned compass). Now, while Will's looking for Jack and Jack's looking for the key, Elizabeth manages to get out of jail -- eluding a shadowy assassin sent by Bennett -- and stow away on another ship to try and find Will. Once aboard, she disguises herself as a man and uses her empty dress to covince the crew that the ship's haunted so they'll sail to Tortuga, which is where Jack ends up trying to recruit a crew to find an alternate method of repaying his debt to Jones. But Will, who by this time has already got the 411 from Jack, is aboard Davy Jones' ship, searching for the key to his chest. Still following along?

Bear in mind that this is all just a preface to the main body of the film, which also includes several subplots, and you begin to get an idea of just how complicated things get. And, as I'm fond of saying in relation to computer games, complexity does not equal depth. Or fun, for that matter...

Understandably, given all this baggage, the film clocks in at a butt-numbing 2 and a half hours. Sure, the first one was pretty long, but it never felt like it, partly because you always knew where it was going. However, I rarely knew where Dead Man's Chest was heading, and most of these plots within plots within subplots are just left hanging at the end in anticipation of the sequel next summer. As one reviewer put it, the whole thing's nothing more than an "overture to yet another sequel".

Related to the plot problem is pacing. POTC 2 is all over the place. One minute it's dragging its heels as a sassy voodoo witch tries to imbue Will Turner with a sense of "destiny", the next you're enjoying a stunning set-piece as Jack makes his escape from cannibal island. Once again, the film isn't terrible; there are some memorable moments and jawdropping scenes, but it struggles to sustain interest where its predecessor did so effortlessly. 5/10.

The man who traded a paperclip for a house

Kyle Macdonald has finally managed to trade his way from a single red paperclip:


to a three-bedroomed house in Kipling, Saskatchewan, Canada in just one year and 14 trades:



You can read the full story on Kyle's blog (via Boingboing).

I remember hearing about this back when he was up to a white van, and to be honest I was impressed that he'd got that far. Of course, it might be just as well to gloss over the fact that he somehow managed to get from that van to a KISS snow globe on the way to the house (who knew the "Knights In Satan's Service" even endorsed snow globes?). Fortunately for Kyle, he met someone who happened to be a dedicated snow globe collector -- and also a kind of famous actor. But taking this kind of risk is what the whole project was all about: relative value. Kyle sums it up like this:

"What's more important to a man dying of thirst in the desert - one million dollars or a glass of water? So all I gotta do now is find somebody who needs a "drink". (The KISS snowglobe is filled with water - well, a water-ish substance, at least.) What I'm trying to say here is that I strongly believe that one person's trash is another person's treasure."

What I like about this story is that it neatly illustrates how just a catchy idea and the internet -- plus a canny head for handling press and publicity -- can lead to fame, fortune and a damn good yarn.

Live Insects Challenge Humans in Bizarre Computer Game

In Wim van Eck's project, humans square off against real crickets in a modified version of Pac-Man:

Full story at livescience.
(from Digg)

The best thing about this article is the deadpan implication that we may be able to use this project as some kind of pre-emptive training for fighting real-life alien bug wars in the future:

"If we're going to fight insectile aliens, we certainly need to start somewhere; Wim van Eck's project is a fine beginning."

I guess the next challenge will be figuring out how to make World of Antcraft so that we can hook the potential offworld invaders on endlessly levelling up their virtual buggy avatar. Then, when they run out of credits to pay their monthly subscription to Blizzard, we can kick their worthless insectoid hides off our planet -- by that time, of course, their formerly strong multi-limbed bodies will have decayed and grown weak from months of inactivity sitting around playing an MMORPG.

Bring it on!

It's Hammertime once again!

YES!

http://mchammer.blogspot.com/
(from some comments on a Digg post)


Apparently, he released a new album in February -- "Look, Look, Look (Lookx3)" -- which is now available via I-Tunes. You can watch the hilarious video for the single at Google Video, but what's really worth reading is his blog (linked above). Some choice quotes are below (warning: those who look back fondly on a time when wearing enormous clown pants was seen as hip may experience intense feelings of disillusionment):

"My dreads, my bald head, and my grill are a part of me. They are not "me" because I am not what I wear. They are to me as war paint is to a warrior. My dance is my cry. Feel my power and yet witness my grace. I speak through the dance."

"There is no age requirement or limit and no respect of persons to this dance. If you relate to the conditions and recognize the symptoms join in. I'm hyphy. Hyper. I can't stop moving."

"I MC Hammer am back dancing because the world needs to dance and Hip Hop needs leadership. No leadership is like no father. Wisdom comes from living life."

Word.

Yep, these are the actual words of MC "Please don't hurt 'em" Hammer, back to teach us the dance of life with a fairly pedestrian hip-hop song. Wonders never cease.

But, seriously, on the rest of his blog there are some pretty heartwarming stories and pics of him with his boy. And, hey, I can't rag on him too hard because the bottom line is the guy's clearly passionate about what he's doing. I'm just not entirely sure what that is.

So this is the new Hammer: Before it was "2 Legit 2 Quit!". Now it's "Feel the power; witness the grace!". Not quite as punchy, but at least he ditched the pants.

Modern music is too loud for its own good

So says one blogger:

Why the "loudness wars" are killing today's music.
(via reddit)

"Record labels for decades have tried to make records louder, on the mostly-correct theory that louder music is more likely to pull you in on first listen. But the way you make music louder is via "compression" ... Compression shrinks the difference between the peaks and valleys, so there's less dynamic range [but w]hen a song has less dynamic range, even if it's louder we are -- paradoxically -- more likely to tune it out"

This is a summary of a much longer article from Stylus Magazine by Nick Southall. The conclusion there is pretty depressing, if a little sensationalist:

"[W]hen is it desirable for music to be at a consistent volume? When it's not being actively listened to; i.e. when it's intended as background music. Sudden (or even gradual) dynamic changes in ambient volume disturb people from what they are otherwise doing (shopping, eating, working) by making them pay attention to the fluctuating sound rather than the task in hand ... So it is with music too—it may grab your attention more effectively at the start, but it's ultimately easier to ignore too. All music becomes background music if it's at one flat level, no matter how loud. And flat, hypnotic background music is a form of social control."

Leaving aside the "OMG! Record companies are using music to CONTROL OUR MINDS!!!1" hyperbole for a second, he's spot on. At the risk of sounding like an out-of-touch old-timer, I happened to be listening to a random mix on Winamp while reading through this article and it played a relatively old (c. 1991) Orbital track back to back with a recent track by M83. They're both great bands, but the M83 track was ear-splittingly loud in comparison to the Orbital one. It's a crude example, particularly because mp3s are hardly the be all and end all of musical quality, but it illustrates the point.

Of course loud music is better, but like the man says: "If you want to listen to something loud, there’s a simple method—turn it up."

Déjà Vu, Again and Again

What's a déjà vu? Turns out it's a bit more complicated than a glitch in the matrix:

"Take a moment to remember what happened during your day yesterday. Images and sounds begin to flash through your mind: people you spoke to, places you went, meals you ate. One scene cues up another, leading you on vivid tangents as you cycle through the day. Now ask yourself: how do you know that you are remembering those images as they happened?"

Full story.
(from Digg)

There's a rare condition called "déjà vécu" which is like having déjà vu all the time. This New York Times article is a long, but very interesting read which gives an insight into the world of the sufferer and the scientists seeking to understand how our memories work.

Linguistic myth-busting

Stop, collaborate and listen! Linguistlist is a free resource which I've used frequently in my postgraduate studies, and very occasionally it turns up something that's potentially interesting to the layman. Like this story about dispelling some popular language myths:

Linguistics, Anybody?
(via linguistlist)

The idea that language is "getting worse" or that it is somehow being corrupted from its "true form" is typically associated with some idea of a "golden age" where everyone was polite and spoke "properly". It also often correlates with a negative attitude towards whatever is the latest fad: TV, internet, videogames or texting (SMS messaging). And then there's the kids: It's usually the perceived laziness and poor education of teenagers (and/or the lower classes) which is seen as responsible for language standards being "worse than they were in my day".

There are a couple of responses to this misguided view. First, language changes. It always has done and it always will: this is axiomatic. Sure, there will always be people -- like Jonathan Swift -- who see it as their duty to stop change from happening, but you can't stop the tide. Just look at the writing style and lexis in Swift's "Proposal...", for example: constructions like "some few" seem awkward today, yet they were quite standard when Swift was writing.

Second, the idea that language is somehow "getting worse" begs the question "worse at what?" or "worse in what way?". If you believe -- as many do -- that language is for communication, then the logical conclusion is that people who speak "poor English" are not able to communicate their ideas as effectively or with the same nuance or subtlety as others. And the implied argument is that, one day, if we let this disgraceful slip in standards continue, we may all be reduced to speaking like savages! For shame!

This is utter rubbish of course. If language change is inevitable, it is equally inevitable that people will always want to communicate. It's in our nature. What those who advocate linguistic preservation often fail to recognize is that the groups they chastise for dragging standards down have invariably created a new code that is an order of magnitude more effective than the standard one for their situation. I'm thinking of text-speak in particular here. Much as we might bemoan the rise of "r u ok?", "c u l8r" and "lol", you can't deny it is an astonishingly efficient way of communicating with limited characters on a small screen. The other amazing thing about it is that no one taught people how to do this: the kids made it up on their own when confronted with a situation which potentially limits their capacity to talk to each other. Why would they do that if they weren't primarily concerned with effective and efficient communication amongst their peers?

Of course there must be different standards for different communicative situations. I've marked several undergraduate essays down for including txt-ish when it wasn't appropriate. But, as far as I'm concerned, viewing language change as inevitable doesn't necessarily commit you to an "anything goes, anytime" policy. Text-speak is not as effective at communicating in an academic context. Simple as that, lol.

So why are all these myths about language so common? The linked article suggests it may be because linguistics simply isn't taught in schools. I'd have to agree. Where it is taught -- at least in the UK -- it's usually part of the rather nebulous subject "English Language", which is often seen as the easy option in high school. I seem to remember that's why I chose it at A-level (it's all about writing stories, innit?).

But there's much more to linguistics than analysing the language of adverts or knowing the difference between a noun and a verb (and, judging by some of the students I've taught over the last few years, even that topic isn't covered any more). And you don't have to speak more than one language to study linguistics: trust me, I should know!

Linguistics needs to be part of the basic school cirriculum at the very least to stop these kinds of myths from perpetuating. What's more, it'll help when students who come to university know the difference between a subject and a direct object. Syntax ftw!

Library phone answerers survive the Internet

I found this rather sweet:

"Anyone, of any age, from anywhere can telephone 212-340-0849 and ask New York Public Library researchers almost any question."

And they only have five minutes to answer. Take that Internet!

Full story (Cnet news).
(from Digg)

Eon8.com = elaborate social experiment

So, it's not an evil underground terror network ready to unleash untold destruction on the major population centres of the world after all. Nor even a viral marketing scheme for the next James Bond film or Halo 3:


www.eon8.com (original website - now just shows a list of mirrors)

(See official Eon8 fansite for the full lowdown.)

For six months leading up to yesterday (1st July), the website www.eon8.com displayed -- in ominous black and white -- a simple map of the world and and a timer counting down to zero. The other links on the main page (now taken offline due to massive amounts of Slashdot and ytmnd traffic) led to areas which required a password for access.

In addition to the site itself, the creator made a number of mysterious posts on a variety of forums which consisted of little more than random codes and indecipherable messages. Once the geek and tech communities of the web caught on, there was rampant speculation as to the site's purpose. I guess most people believed it was probably some sort of hoax (after all, what top secret government agency or terror organisation publicises their plan to bring about the END OF THE WORLD by creating a website for it?), but that still didn't stop the hackers and codebreakers trying to work out what on earth was going on.

I only found out about this last week after viewing a bunch of alternately hilarious and ridiculously portentous ytmnds about the phenomenon. Turns out it was all a social experiment designed to see how people react to very little information. The guy who created it -- a web designer from Florida variously called Mike or Chris -- said he was "disappointed that people expected the worst":

"For many people, being faced with a countdown timer was an instant reason to try to shut down or hack the site. This is a worrying reaction, that if someone doesn't understand something they must destroy it. As a result, the servers have been hit quite hard these last few days, but luckily 99% of the 'hackers' could easily be described as 'l4me n00bs'. Another worrying example of paranoia was how quickly people would jump to conclusions, such as telephoning the registered owner of a dog seen in a photograph on a server that hosts a page that links to eon8."

So there you have it: what we don't understand we must destroy. Human nature, lol.

Warren Spector talks freedom

A little while ago I made some not altogether positive comments about Gabe Newell's game design philosophy. Well, now Warren Spector -- whose ideas Gabe was critiquing in the first place -- has spoken out passionately in defence of freedom of choice in games.

Warren says:

"I don't believe it's ever a waste of time to give players real choices, rather than fake ones. If all you're doing is putting players on rails and rocketing them through your story, why not just build a roller coaster or make a movie? If the only choice a player gets to make is which weapon to use to kill a bad guy, you've completely wasted that player's time. Roller coaster rides are immense amounts of fun, but really, all they do is provide an adrenalin rush and a moment's distraction from the workaday world. Games can be more."

I couldn't have put it better myself! You can read the full interview at Eurogamer.

Alla y'all playaz better recognize!

When M-dawg and his homies are waxin', maxxin' an' relaxxxin' in the studio, this is how it all goes down:


Get this video and more at MySpace.com

So, what's actually going on in the above 7 minutes and 13 seconds of visual virtuosity?

For about four days in April this year I found myself in a recording studio in Newcastle upon Tyne. I'm not entirely sure how I ended up there, but it may have had something to do with the fact that, for the previous six months, I'd been involved in a musical "project" with a friend of mine, Mark Nichol.

Mark's a drummer by trade, but he also plays guitar and writes songs. At this point, alarm bells should be ringing; we've all seen and heard what happens when you let drummers write songs: Ringo, Slipknot, Phil Collins, Kaiser Chiefs... You see? The list speaks for itself. Except that, this time, the songs are really good and Mark wanted me play guitar on them. (Before that, you see, we'd been in a band together and I'd somehow managed to convince him that I was a halfway-decent guitarist -- PFSHAWW! Enough of this false modesty rubbish; I'm at least a decent guitar player.) How could I resist such an offer?

As you can see on the video, it wasn't just me and Mark who were involved in this musical gat attack. Also present are: John Pattison (gangsta name: J 2 tha P) on vocals; James Main (gangsta handle: JJ 'Phreaky-D' McPhly) on keyboards (or just "keys" if you're a pretentious pillock); Vanessa Nichol (gangsta ID: V-Loc) on vocals; and Steve Caithness (we never asked Steve for his gangsta name but, if I had to guess, I'd say it'd be: Crunk Caithnizzle) on bass.

Finally, orchestrating the whole shebang from behind that Yamaha DC-5400 SoundstaticXtreme Professional sound-desk you can see in many of the shots is none other than Fred Purser. Yes, that Fred Purser. Latterly of the Tygers of Pan Tang and 70s punk band Penetration. Suffice to say he's like a scientist on the knobs. A magical scientist. A magical musical scientist. He's good.

If you've read this far, you probably won't be averse to a small plug at this point. So here it is: Go to www.myspace.com/marknichol and you can listen to four of the songs we recorded and read some more about our antics in the studio in Mark's blog.

As you'll see if you read the blurb and the blog entries on the site, these songs are essentially an expression of worship to God, giving thanks for who He is and what He's done for us. I think they've come out pretty well. But you can go and listen and judge for yourself!

For the most part, the songs are guitar-driven rock in style, but they're poppy enough to have a wider appeal than the lank-haired, black-t-shirt-wearing metal crowd (apologies if that includes you; it used to be me). The lyrics are also available, for those who want to check the theology's sound, or if you just like reading words that rhyme.

Peace out.

Videogames + wiggaz + wack rhymes = internet bliss

Ch-ch-check it out:



64K - 1337

(64K is the name of the "band"; 1337 is the song, noobs.)

I found this on boingboing. I usually don't like just blogging a link without any meaningful comment, but since this one combines at least three of my top ten favourite pastimes--videogames, incredibly lame rhymes and interneticana--I couldn't resist. I nearly choked on my Coco Pops when the PC-phreak ("never owned a console, just a PC...") spat his Adrock-influenced verse about pwning noobs, and you will too... Seriously, watch out for that one.

The fact that they somehow managed to shoehorn a potted history of the entire videogame industry from Commodore 64 to SNES to Playstation into a five minute rap is surely further evidence of their comedic genius. And I'll certainly remember to wear my safety goggles in future when I'm dropping finely-crafted raps and racking up frags in UT2004, that's for sure.

Hey, wait a minute: "rackin' up frags" rhymes with "capturin' flags", right? I think I feel a rhyme brewing already.

Valve, Half-Life and the future of open-ended gameplay

I've just read a two-part interview -- part 1 and part 2 -- with Valve (creators of Half-Life) on Eurogamer and I'm feeling a little disheartened about the future of one of the most famous PC game franchises.

First, a quick history lesson for the uninitiated: In 1998, Valve released Half-Life, a first-person shooter for the PC. In the game you play the role of a scientist/action hero, Gordon Freeman, who manages to open a portal to another dimension on his first day working at a top-secret government research facility.




It's not much of a stretch to say that Half-Life pretty much single-handedly revolutionised the FPS genre, despite an admittedly lacklustre final act. It managed this in several ways. First, there are no cutscenes: everything in the game is seen from the player's point-of-view. This means you're never taken out of the action; not even for a second. From the introductory train ride through the Black Mesa research facility to the final confrontation on Xen, you effectively become Gordon Freeman. Then there's the astonishing use of in-game set-pieces. Half-Life managed to incorporate the kind of jaw-dropping action sequences previously seen only in cutscenes into the actual game itself. There are just so many memorable moments--anyone who's played Half-Life will remember the scientist falling down the lift shaft; the first encounter with a head crab; cautiously creeping past the blind multi-tentacled alien in the blast pit; or desperately dashing for cover to avoid the black helicopter on the surface. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, there's the variety and pacing of the gameplay itself. You never spend too long on a single task in Half-Life; one minute you're tangling with soldiers, the next you're trying to figure out how to cross a room filled with electrified water... Despite being utterly linear, Half-Life succeeds because it constantly changes the challenge for the player.

In 2004 -- six years later -- Valve released the hugely awaited follow-up, Half-Life 2. The anticipation surrounding the release was such that, in one gaming magazine, a simple picture of a crowbar (Freeman's signature weapon) on a white background was enough to send fans into a frenzy of speculation about the sequel. Perhaps inevitably for a game with so much media attention, first impressions of Half-Life 2 were mixed. Some fans were unreasonably disappointed that it wasn't the game they'd already designed in their head. That's not to say it wasn't well-received; the game enjoyed almost universally high scores from most of the big-name PC game sites. However, this time round the watchword was evolution, rather than revolution. Half-Life 2 didn't reinvent the wheel, it just fitted brand new treads and pimped it out with a set of shiny, chrome 20" rims.





With HL2, Valve once again showed they were masters of pacing and variety in FPS gameplay. What's more, the gravity gun introduced an entirely new (and incredibly fun) way for the player to dispatch the bad guys. It's a simple idea: pick up objects with the right mouse button, blast them away from you with the left. Of course, it helps if the object in question is heavy or sharp, or, preferably, both.

At first, I was one of those fans who was a little disappointed with the game. It didn't stand out from the competition in the way the original game had; at least, not obviously so. On the first run through, it felt like just another "on rails" shooter, albeit an exceptionally well-produced and entertaining one. On subsequent plays, though, I've come to appreciate the thing that, for me, sets Half-Life 2 above the rest. I've fallen in love with the atmosphere of the game.

I suppose I should explain that I'm a bit of a sucker for post-apocalyptic settings in general -- think 28 Days Later, Day of the Triffids, or Fallout; but not Reign of Fire or The Day After Tomorrow (I have standards!). There's something intriguingly chilling and exhilirating about seeing the highest works of mankind laid to waste by forces more powerful than we can comprehend. I also find it strangley compelling to speculate on the way in which humans, faced with such a scenario, would rise from the ashes and start again. Half-Life 2 is a veritable feast of post-apoc goodness. From the decaying Eastern-European vibe of the Orwellian City 17 to the zombie and antlion-infested coastline, the game leaves you feeling uneasy and with the strong impression that something VERY BAD™ has happened in the not-too-distant past. What's more, HL2 never spoon-feeds the player the backstory; you're left to glean what information you can from discarded newspaper clippings and fragmentary public service announcements. For me, this approach is a winner.

One of my favourite moments in the game comes when you finally escape from City 17 and make it out onto the Highway in a souped-up dune buggy.




There is something incredibly eerie about driving along the coastline, past deserted houses and shacks which are now home only to families of zombies and headcrabs. The other reason why this section of HL2 made such a strong impact on me was, I think, because of the change of pace. HL2 is not a freeform game by any means, but this part did allow you to head off the beaten track and explore a bit. It's moments like this, in my view, that showcase HL2 at its best and which make it a progression from the original Half-Life.

Fast-forward to 2006 (I've always wanted to use that line). Valve just released Half-Life 2: Episode 1. Is it an expansion pack or is it a sequel? Hard to tell, really. In the Eurogamer interview, Valve claims it's more of a sequel since it deals with events which take place directly after HL2, but it's certainly around the length of a conventional expansion pack (5 hours or so). But maybe that's because Valve have, with this game, decided to commit to releasing so-called 'episodic content' instead of full-fledged releases every 5 or 6 years. It's a brave decision, and I'm not fully convinced one way or the other at this point. Probably this'll be the subject for another post...

The point of all this rambling nonsense is this: HL2:E1, while maintaining the astonishing post-apocalyptic atmosphere of HL2, is actually even more linear than its predecessor. It's not that it's a bad game. It's certainly classically Valve in that it never lets up the pace and is consistently entertaining. However, after completing it I was left with the overwhelming sensation that I was being simply shepherded from one encounter to another with little chance to stop and catch my breath. "Well, that's just Half-Life," you'd say. Well, yes, but both the original game and HL2 managed to hide the linearity pretty effectively, whereas Ep1 is less successful in this regard. More importantly, there's something that Gabe Newell (head of Valve software) says in the Eurogamer interview which is most revealing about Valve's underlying philosophy of game design. When discussing Warren Spector's controlled, yet open-ended approach to game design, Gabe says:

"He builds a game that you can play through six different times. So that means that people pay for the game, but don't get to play five sixths of the game, which I feel is a mistake... if only one per cent of your customers see this cool thing that takes five per cent of your development budget, that's not a good use of resources."

Robin Walker, another Valve designer, adds that he wants to make sure all players have the same experiences while playing the game. But surely this isn't the point. Games are interactive media, and the nature of any interaction (at least, any fun interaction) is that whoever's doing the interaction gets to make some meaningful choices. Of course, the player does get to make these kinds of choices on a tactical level in HL2:E1. That is, do I stand over here and shoot the combine soldiers, or do I use the gravity gun to throw a flaming barrel at them? But I was hoping for a bit more from the "sequel" after the glimpse of a higher level freedom in the coastline section of HL2.

If all we're doing when playing a game is going through a pre-arranged sequence of "experiences", we may as well pack it all in and watch Mission:Impossible III. I admit that there's room for both truly open-ended gameplay (Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion) and the more restrictive linear formula HL2:E1 has adopted; not everyone has the same gaming tastes as me, after all. However, after the brief taste of controlled freedom experienced in HL2, I'm disappointed that more isn't being made of the possibilities this offers the player to express himself through the game.

Even if all the exploration-oriented player is rewarded with is some new story information or the chance to bypass a trap, that's worth it. Even if only 1% of the audience experiences this (which, to be honest, I find extremely difficult to believe given the replay-value such design decisions inherently provide), it's still worth it, because it provides the potential for a greater degree of interaction for the player. And, in the final analysis, the moments that are the most memorable may be the ones which not everyone gets to experience the first time around.

Now, after all that, I think I'll take the buggy for a spin along Highway 17...

Steve Easterbrook: Round Two

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a link to a cringingly-funny interview with Steve Easterbrook, UK Chief Exec of McDonald's.

Well, he's back. This time it's in an interview on BBC radio. (And, yes, despite what you might initially think after listening to the first 60 seconds, it is a different interview.)

At first, it was like the attack of the roflcopter, as Mr. Easterbrook once again demonstrates his consummate inability to answer a direct question or, in fact, say anything substantive whatsoever. The hilarity was such that I could barely stop myself spraying tea all over my keyboard as I listened again to his earnest pledges to "run the business in an increasingly transparent manner", "separate the facts from the fiction" and "lift the lid off the business to allow the people to see it for themselves".

To his credit, he does eventually manage to shoehorn some examples and percentages in between the rhetoric this time around. Apparently, they've reduced the salt on their "world-famous fries by 30% in the last two years". Good times lie ahead.

But it's Eric Schlosser's (author of Fast Food Nation) comment which sums the whole thing up: "it's kind of hard to have a debate with someone who's already been taped."

Starbucks

The simian-snack-savouring Mr. Scott, who was the subject of my blog yesterday, has also written a very amusing letter of complaint to Starbucks about their coffee-sizing policy, and published it on his website. I heartily approve of this kind of thing; it's a topic which has been ticking me off for ages: Tall = Small?!? Yeah, right. Only in bizzaro-world.

Go, angryman, go!

Advanced Work-Avoidance Tactics, Part 1

Today I have written a paragraph. Which is better than yesterday. Yesterday I only managed a title.

In case you were wondering, I'm (still) finishing up my thesis, and to say that it's slow-going would be an understatement. I have (most of) one final chapter left to write. Then I have to tidy everything up, stick in an introduction and conclusion, whip up a bibliography, jot down some acknowledgements, compile a contents page, paste it all together with stickyback plastic and send the whole lot off to an external examiner in the hopes that one day soon I'll be able to put "Dr." in front of my name on letters to my bank and my driver's license. Sweet.

Anyway, as everyone knows, whenever you're sitting in front of a computer trying to write something very important there is invariably something much more fun, exciting and interesting to look at roughly two seconds away. And, even if there isn't, you can always WRITE about doing something more fun, exciting and interesting. On a blog. Thanks internet.

For the last hour or so, I've been reading about someone who's been doing just that:

www.angryman.ca/monkey.html
(via BoingBoing)

Adam Scott is living for a week on nothing but monkey chow (which I guess is American Canadian for monkey food) and telling the internet all about it! It's like a zoologically-friendly version of Supersize Me. He's even posting daily video diaries on youtube, all delivered in an achingly funny deadpan style. Exciting, huh? Well, when the alternative is writing some more about the semantics of the English verb 'open', I think you know which one wins every time...

This is the way; walk in it.

I can be a bit thick sometimes, especially when it comes to hearing God's voice.

At church on Sunday night we committed a Bible verse to memory as part of the service. The verse was Isaiah 30:21, and it goes like this:

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."

At the time I thought nothing of it. Actually, that's not quite true. To be honest, I didn't really understand what it was saying--and maybe I still don't--but I made a mental note to go away and read the verse in context to try and get a handle on it.

The verse comes in the middle of a chapter (and, in fact, a series of chapters) prophesying woe and doom. God is disciplining His children (and other nations) and showing them the error of their ways. But, even though they have worshipped false gods and idols, God is always longing to show mercy to His people if they follow His ways:

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! (Isaiah 30:18).

God is saying that, even though we have been disobedient, all we have to do is cry for help (Isaiah 30:19) and As soon as he hears, he will answer you. He's saying He's a gracious and faithful God, in other words.

Which brings me to my current situation. I'm coming to the end of an eight-year stint in higher education. At the moment I'm in the final stages of writing up my PhD thesis in linguistics at Newcastle University. It's been a fun ride, though very hard at times. However, all things end and now I've got to head out into the big world and get a job... At 27 years old. Pretty shameful, I know.

Now, I know the general area I want to work in, but I'm still utterly clueless about where I'm supposed to go. Jobs in the academic-related sector are few and far between and, generally, when they come up, you have to go for them. So I've been sending out applications left, right and centre to universities up and down the country. Throughout this time, Jen (my wife) and I have tried to stay open to God's will; we've basically said: "whereever you want us, Lord, we'll go. But try to make it obvious, please!"

Well, God's already answering that prayer. All of the applications I've sent out so far have come back with a resounding negatory. Nothing. Not even an interview. Of course, this makes me feel pretty crap, but if I believe God is faithful, then I should give thanks to Him for answering my prayers!

More generally though, I don't have a feeling of being "called" anywhere in particular. When this whole process started, I made a point of saying that I don't just want to stay around the North East simply because that's where I've been for my entire life, or because it'd just be easy to do. Don't get me wrong: I'd love to stay here. We've got family and friends here and it's a fantastic place to live. But I felt it was important to give all that to God and stay open to His direction.

I suppose I expected God to tell us where to go. Maybe audibly. Or maybe by dropping an email in my inbox. Or possibly even a little more esoterically by placing a glowing halo around a job advert or something. I don't think I even considered something a little more conventional, like, oooh, drawing my attention to a verse in the Bible... A verse like Isaiah 30:21, perhaps.

I was praying and meditating on this verse yesterday as I walked home from university and I felt God gently prod me and reassure me at the same time. I think this verse is God's way of telling me that I just need to listen to His voice and follow His ways. I've been fretting about where to go and how I'm going to get a job, but God's telling me whether I look to the right or to the left, I'll hear His voice and He will be faithful. I believe that God has a plan for our lives and I believe that He'll reveal it to us if we stay close to Him.

Sometimes God reveals stuff to us one step at a time. This is the way, says the Lord. All we have to do is walk in it.